SIEGE
Day 6
1
Millanueve took a cautious step into the solar.
She didn’t like the air in the room. Morning light glowed on the baby blue walls which faint, white floral patterns adorned, and gave the room a stagnant, lulling air. Maybe it had borne a more soothing effect in the past, but now the ataractic mood seemed in a sense sinister; a spell of malevolent intent, silently inviting the visitor to close her eyes, go to rest, and never awaken again. Likely nothing about the room had changed since its construction. It had been constructed the Queen’s private chamber, and so it had stayed even while queens changed, generations passed, and dynasties came to rise and fall. The air stood completely still, aged but deprived of experience, of time. It was the air of a sepulcher, repellent to the living.
Why did Yuliana choose to stay in such a loathsome room, of all the countless available places? Was it a child’s longing for the missing parent? Pure, instinctive desire to get closer to the company of the departed by any means? Or a symptom of something worse, an illness of mortal quality, a wish to follow in the way of her kin...?
No, it was better not to think about it.
“I’ve brought dinner,” Millanueve said as she came in with a silvery tray in her hands. “It’s not much, but you should eat while it’s warm.”
The past princess of Langoria sat on a chair by the window, gazing out. What was she looking at? There was nothing but a portion of the roof and wall visible from up here. The distant mountains. There was no interest or focus in Yuliana’s lavender eyes. She looked unhealthily pale, her eyes surrounded by dark rings. The vitality and hope she had radiated back in Bhastifal was only a distant memory. Winter clouds had covered the star.
Her majesty’s two servants sat—uncouthly slouched—on a divan further in the back. They wished to keep their master company, but she was not of much company in her present state, and nobody spoke a word. There was nothing they could do or say to take bear her burden, or even make it slightly lighter on her. Over the past days, the maids had inadvertently shed the remains of discipline and had gone, like their lord, beyond care in regards to their duty. They looked more like undesired concubines in the harem of an eastern sultan, than the dignified Sovereign’s servants now. Millanueve frowned at the two with disapproval, but they ignored her entirely.
“I’m not hungry,” Yuliana told the knight without looking. “You should give my share to the others.”
“I can’t do that!” Millanueve answered. “You won’t last unless you eat. I’ll put the tray here, so make sure to clean up all of it. Otherwise it really is going to waste. You wouldn’t want that, right?”
She set the meal on the table before Yuliana. There was a small vase of flowers left on the window side, the flowers long withered, their browned, crumpled blossoms difficult to identify. Her majesty gave the tray a disinterested glance and then turned her eyes back to the window.
“What are the others doing?” she asked.
“The same they do every day. Guarding our peace.”
“I see. I thought they’d have given into anarchy by now.”
“They’re not going to do that,” Millanueve told her in a scolding tone. “They’re still human beings—they all have their own reasons to try their best to live.”
“We people have our reasons, yes,” Yuliana said. “We have our dreams and aspirations. Until life shows us it’s not going to happen. What can you do after that? When you see the full extent of your folly laid bare before you? When you stand there, at the limit of everything, and pay witness to the full breadth of your toils, and see how far it falls short of what it was supposed to be—what is there left to do?”
Irony and despair made her speech flow thick and heavy as distilled venom.
Listening to it, Millanueve’s frown deepened.
“Those are not your own words,” the girl told the Empress. “You heard what Master Carmelia said. Daemons embolden the negativity in people. I know this is bad. And I know you feel responsible for it. You shoulder the greatest negativity among us and that makes it easy for them to push you. But you mustn’t give in to despair so soon! You’re our leader. Unless you show us how to carry ourselves, then who will?”
“No. My role as a figurehead is finished,” Yuliana replied. “Listen to the Marshal if you want to live a little longer. She knows what needs to be done.”
“With all due respect, I don’t like the Marshal!” Millanueve said. “She’s thrown away her own humanity. I understand why she did it, but people need more than steel and strict words to move them. If you push them too far, they will break no less surely than if they were struck down. They need heart and hope to go on! I didn’t come all this way for the Empire. I came because a person called Yuliana asked me to. It was you I wanted to follow, not that black banner.”
Yuliana snorted faintly. “That’s a lie.”
“A lie?”
“It was never me you came for.” Yuliana got up from her chair and stood to face Millanueve, a cold, jaded look in her eyes. “Which begs the question, what do you want from me, exactly? I led you here and this is the end. Aren’t I an exemplary leader? What more can I do for you? Is this much despair not good enough for you yet? Do you think I could still arrange you into depths even deeper and darker? No, I’m afraid this is it. After all you have seen, why can’t you just face it—you’ve made the wrong choice.”
“The wrong choice...?” Millanueve looked at the woman, startled. “What are you talking about?”
“Or maybe it’s the other way round? You think there is a way you could make my misery even more wretched than it already is? Is this your idea of ‘repaying the favor’? Oh, how generous of you! Too bad, you can’t! There is no conceivable way for this pain to be made any worse! No insult that could leave a mark. There is nothing left to take! Nothing left to lose. Do you see? You even stole my knight from me, what more could you ask for? My servants? My clothes? These rings? The throne? Will that make you happy? Then take it. Do you think that I really wanted any of this, that I love being ‘empress’, or ‘princess’, or whatever? That it was a joy? Oh, you can have it! See for yourself what it’s like—have it all! And leave me be!”
Yuliana pulled the Sovereign’s ring from her finger and threw it onto the floor at Millanueve’s feet, and did the same to her family ring. She pulled off the Imperial Medallion as well, snapped the chain, and discarded it too.
The light clicking of metal on stone in her ears, Millanueve stared at the woman, stunned.
“Get out,” Yuliana concluded with a bitter command. “And don’t come back.”
Then a sharp slap broke the static air in the chamber.
Unable to tolerate the spiteful look in Yuliana’s eyes, Millanueve had raised her hand and struck her majesty, to the dismay of her horrified servants. Her majesty as well froze out of surprise.
“…As I feared, I can’t be your knight,” Millanueve spoke with remorse. “I’m not part of the Imperial Guard from this day on. It’s the job of a servant to do her lord’s bidding, whether for good or evil, and never say never. But I can’t follow a lord who has lost sight of herself. My heart won’t allow it! So I quit. Only then can I do my true duty to you! Even if you’ll hate me for it.”
“Your ‘duty’...?” Yuliana repeated, feeling her cheek, where a livelier color was returning.
“That’s right.” Millanueve said and nodded. “Before, you told me to treat you as a sister. And it’s the duty of your family to sometimes argue with you, fight with you, and tell you when you’ve gone wrong! This is such a moment. You’re going down the wrong path, Yuliana! Open your eyes! Reality isn’t as terrible as it seems! Not yet! We’re still alive and doing the best we can! So stop saying such terrible things and come out of this ghastly chamber, before it becomes the death of you!”
Whether for the heat and pain on her cheek, or the vigor in the girl’s voice, a glint of vitality was gradually restored in her majesty’s gaze. She held her cheek and closed her eyes, while the corners of her lips curved into a bittersweet smile.
“...You hit me kind of hard.”
“Eeh? But I held back a lot?”
2
General Monterey proved a more mellow commander than his superior, fortunately for Izumi. He viewed the summoned champion as a genuine hero in the lack of better knowledge, and was rather apologetic for wasting her time with menial guard labor. But he emphasized the good points of the job, including her effect on the morale. He showed Izumi the limits of her perimeter in person, marked by the guardhouse in the northern corner of the front yard and the stables on the south side. The gatehouse and the associated walls fell in between the two.
The essential point of the duty lay in the watchmen seeing the champion stand with them. They would know they weren’t alone, her presence kept them alert, and the General left it entirely to Izumi’s own discretion how she managed this role. Not that there was a lot of room for variety.
Nothing happened on the first day after the mutineers had gone and the day after that didn’t seem like it was going to be different. The night watch had been fairly thrilling, at first, but as Izumi grew more familiar with the surroundings and the other defenders, her tension level also came down quickly.
By day two, the gig had turned simply boring, as if she had been doing it for years.
She passed time slowly trudging along a looping path around her territory. She started off southward and went to the corner of the long stable building. The beast shelter was outside of her jurisdiction, but she paused to give the house and its sentries a scrutinizing look, before turning for the ascent of stairs in the corner of the wall. The narrow stone steps brought her up to the wall walk, whence opened a gut-wrenching view down to the vast canyon beyond the castle, deep in the shadow of the tall cliffs above which rested the main city.
A damp haze that the winter sun failed to banish hovered persistent above the glum depths, where dark waters flowed from the mountains towards the south and the sea without a sense of time and nothing seemed to live.
Done with admiring the lofty scenery, Izumi continued west and passed through the slim corner turret linking the southern and the western segments of the wall. There was a pair of guards stationed at the top, with a view even more breathtaking, but Izumi wasn’t so fond of heights that she would go up there. She continued on along the wall between the parapets, and kept her eye on the city across the moat.
The silence continued undisturbed today too. Nothing showed itself on the opposing walls or the bare rooftops, but she knew this to be only a deceitful illusion. She could sense, even from such a distance, the dark sentience lurking behind the face of the urban landscape. It was nothing like a human mind, emotional and expressible, ever in motion, but something unchanging, constant as the daylight, and ever present.
There was no one alive in the city, yet it was far from dead.
She couldn’t tell how many enemies there were, precisely, or where they were. It was not advanced ESP, or any special power she had, but only something she vaguely knew by instinct. But however many, they were all of one thought, of one mind and being, and no borders could be drawn between one monster and the other. Being harmoniously united in purpose, but for a purpose outside the grasp of the living—one might’ve admired it, if it weren’t so altogether hostile and cruel.
Izumi could only thank her luck that she couldn’t perceive the enemy’s mind any clearer, or else there was no telling what would’ve become of her sanity. She kept walking.
“Good work, good work,” she told the watchers manning the wall as she passed. “Is that heavy?”
She had to wonder how they could keep standing all day in their thick gear.
“Not at all,” the knights assured. “We’re used to it.”
“Oh. How dependable.”
The crew was tired but mostly still in good humor. One week in isolation wasn’t much of a trial for troops labeled as “elite”, without active battle to test them. But there were exceptions among the lot too. Some wouldn’t respond to the champion’s greetings with a word, but only eyed her with doubt through their visors. She made plans to break the ice.
Izumi passed through the gatehouse. There were rooms on multiple floors, some of them reserved for weaponry and ammunition, others simply for passing time, the gate controls towards the ground level. Most of the guardsmen stayed in a hall directly above the entry passage, where they could observe all incoming traffic on the bridge, and the gate from all sides, and had good posts to fire upon unwanted visitors through the many machilocations. It was quite about the most pleasant place to be in all of the castle.
The soldiers were adding wood under the oil cauldrons to reheat them before the night shift.
“By the way,” Izumi told them in passing, “might want to mix something in the oil. It doesn’t burn hot enough.”
“What…?”
She went through and out through the other side of the fortress and kept going along the rampart, until she reached the northwestern corner of it. There, before the facing tower, another steep stairway took her down to the yard, close to the small guardhouse partially built into the neighboring section of the wall.
She returned southward from there and came before the main building’s entrance, where a bonfire was regularly kept. Margitte sat there, on a block by the fire, reading a book. The girl looked only like a child on an idle Sunday picnic, but a part of her attention was at all times dedicated to overseeing the gate wards and the sentries. And Izumi, in particular.
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Izumi would take a break at the fire to warm her hands, and to secretly waste time in the warmth and comfort, until the Court Wizard’s accusing scowl suggested she had better resume the patrol.
No matter how slowly Izumi walked, the whole tour took her barely fifteen minutes. For variety’s sake, she went every third round counter-clockwise, but it didn’t seem to make the day pass any quicker. Each shift was four hours, followed by four hours of rest. There was hardly any time to actually sleep, but Izumi had been a poor sleeper for as long as she could remember and it wasn’t all that different from her usual lifestyle.
Did the hero act actually benefit anyone?
The daemons wouldn’t be able to get over the wall, unless they brought ladders, or else came together and formed ladders of their own bodies. Such a performance might have been worth seeing. Looking at how securely the defenses had kept the past week, there was surely no way the castle could ever fall, save by some unpredictable treachery…The uneasy feeling that they had missed a detail of critical importance haunted Izumi as she began another trip.
It was hard to tell the time during the heavily clouded day, but evening diligently approached. An hour or two before dinner, Izumi received much-needed reinforcements when Waramoti came out of the castle to keep her company.
“What news from the home front?” she asked him.
“Oh, some news,” the bard replied. “In a surprise move baffling her advisors, her majesty decided to move downstairs to stay in the hall with the servants. She also expressed a firm interest in helping the kitchen staff, and joined them in baking bread a while ago. Tonight’s dinner is shaping up to be a novel experience, it seems.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Assurances that this was beneath her rank she dismissed by saying that her rank meant shit now, and her heart said her place was with her people.”
“…Did she actually say, ‘shit’?”
“Weeell, I felt her exact choice of words could benefit from a bit of oomph, if you know what I mean...”
“All right, we’ll go with the director’s cut then.”
“At any rate, our ruler appears to have regained some of her usual vitality,” Waramoti said. “Which is no doubt a good sign for all of us. The civilians will feel better knowing they are cared for, and seeing the non-combatants breathe easier improves the mood of the knights in turn. So it is that none may escape the bonds that connect us, and it is in managing those bonds where the essence of leadership is hidden. If you want to capture the message of the day.”
“Thanks for the tip, Sun Tzu, but that’s all beyond me. Still, good for her, I suppose.”
They carried on and went up the stairs to the wall and cast an eye again on the fathomless gorge and its frozen slopes.
“You scared, kid?” Izumi asked the bard and stopped there.
“I think this situation goes beyond ‘scary’, in many ways,” Waramoti replied as he leaned on an embrasure. “Even now, a part of me wants to believe in destiny and that you are our chosen one. In which case, there must be some way fortune will deliver you from this place. At least you, if no one else. But…”
“But?”
“...But, lately, I find there is also a skeptic in me,” he confessed with a wry, an almost apologetic smile. “It seems a sin to say this aloud, but merely denying it won’t unmake it. I feel we are all being tested. But what happens if we fail the test? What if we don’t live up to the expectations of those who wrote the prophecies? If we were always guaranteed to win, then wouldn’t that mean we never had any free will and neither are our achievements truly our own? But if we are free in the truest sense, then failure must also be a possibility. I’m starting to doubt which is the better option. Then again, there exists also the grim prospect that we are neither free, nor meant to succeed. And that—that is chilling.”
She didn’t immediately comment. Waramoti laughed embarrassedly, ruffling his hair, and seemed to regret speaking up. “Blast it, I thought I was made of sterner stuff!”
Izumi turned to the battlement.
“I know what you mean,” she said. “Back when we first met, Lia spoke about fighting on without hope—and now I’m starting to see what she meant. This may be a nasty surprise for us, but it’s been everyday life for her already for centuries. Who can say, all we do and try might only be a massive waste of time. Maybe there never was meant to be victory, or even if there is one, it won’t be the kind of glorious reward you’d like. But we can’t just roll over and die, even if that’s the case, can we?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Having failed plenty of times before, in this world and the other, I always knew it was going to be an option. We are unmistakably free. Everyone is. But it’s not flunking things that proves that. It’s the ability to keep going, even when everything says you shouldn’t. Even without hope or promises of victory, we humans can still fight on, if only we choose to. That doesn’t make us crazy or stupid. No matter how many times you fail, that doesn’t mean the next time has to be a bust too, right? One of these days, you’ve got to get that win. And if you’re only going to get it once, then it might as well be the fight where it matters most.”
She fell quiet and gazed into the horizon, certain there was nothing more to add. Waramoti stared at the woman for a moment, looking somewhat surprised.
“Izumi?” he then called her in doubt.
“Huh?”
“Is that really you? I mean, that was probably the most mature, uplifting thing I’ve ever heard you say. Ever. No, you must be a doppelganger of most devious cunning. Sorry, but I’m going to call Master Beuhler now. Hold on.”
“Way to ruin the moment, beansprout!”
Izumi caught the bard in a chokehold and raked his scalp with her knuckles to prove her authenticity, and then they went on.
They continued along the allure towards the gatehouse. Izumi peered past the parapet towards the bridge that ran as a bleached, narrow strip of stone below, across the shadows of the moat. The winter day was, like the others, sickly, short-lived, and already headed for its demise. The blue hour was upon them. The city wall glowed in the distance, a turquoise banner across the cliffs, the rooftops a darker blur beyond it. The air was getting colder by the hour. All was quiet.
Then it began to snow.
It snowed hard, at once. Airy flakes poured down in a rapid, angled volley and in no time, visibility from the battlement was reduced to almost nothing. But the snow melted as soon as it touched the ground, and it didn’t seem they would have a white Christmas. Did the people of this world even celebrate anything of the like?
Izumi covered her face with her hand and kept going, seeking the cover of the gatehouse. On the way, she looked once more down to the bridge and saw something fly amid the rain, and stopped to look again. Did she imagine it? No, there it was, a shadow on the bridge, coming towards the castle. More than one, several running figures, sprinting in a disorderly mob. More kept coming from the mainland, but it was difficult to see what they were.
“Hey!” Izumi yelled and leaned over the embrasure to see better, cold panic squeezing her chest. The other sentries caught onto the disturbance. Horns were hastily blown.
“Alarm!”
“They are coming, they are coming!”
“All hands to stations! ALARM!”
The defenders stirred from their drowsy wait and jumped into action. The gatehouse bell was rung, and the knights presently off-duty rushed soon out of the main building to back up their comrades. All of the yard and the wall became busy.
Last came the commanding staff.
“Report!” the Marshal shouted as soon as she stepped out of the main building. She went down the stairs and took a stand near the bonfire, where Margitte had her post. An officer in charge of the gatehouse came forward to answer her.
“Multiple targets inbound, ma’am! Unidentified!”
Up in the gatehouse, the watchers had the best view through the arrow loops. But as the dark shapes crossed the drawbridge and came fully in view, everyone hesitated to reach for their bows. It was not an organized offensive they faced, a beastly onslaught, or a desperate attempt at a conquest, and neither were the invaders particularly numerous. They were only scattered soldiers in black leather vests, a few in Langorian steel, unarmed and in obvious fright. Not all even had their full gear, but had lost their helmets, gauntlets, or coats, some even their boots, and bore grievous wounds, their heads bloodied. They came like beggars and threw themselves upon the indomitable metal barrier, while pitifully wailing.
“Open the gate! Open the gate!”
“Please, you have to open the gate!”
“Help! Please! You have to help us!”
“We’re going to die! Open!”
The deserters begged and cried for rescue, feebly banging the gate with their small fists. There were hardly a dozen of them and no more seemed to be coming. Mere scraps of the hundred that had set out on the previous morning. How far had they made it in the day and a half before being chased back, utterly beaten?
The pitiful wailing carried clearly past the barrier, even to those in the front yard.
The officer watched the signals waved from the gatehouse, and turned then to Miragrave, his expression visibly shaken.
“Marshal, they’re our own!”
Faced with such a tragedy, the instinctive reaction of anyone with a human heart was to somehow help the fellow man. So terrible was the grief and suffering that unfolded before them now that no one’s heart could remain entirely unmoved. The cries of despair ringing in their ears without a pause, some knights edged towards the great control levers mounted on both sides of the gatehouse, thinking it was only a matter of time before the orders to act would be given. There were no enemies in sight, no reason not to save those who could still be saved, while there was time.
But the commander’s wrathful howl stopped them short.
“STAND DOWN! STAND DOWN!”
She dispatched her personal guard to secure the controls with their swords bared and moved to stand before the entrance.
“You have your orders!” she shouted at the knights. “Anyone who goes near the levers will be executed for mutiny! Get back to your stations! Clear the yard!”
The soldiers reluctantly obeyed and withdrew, horror and disbelief painted all over their faces. What they were doing was evil, murder itself. Would merely saying, “I followed orders” excuse it, if they were to be held accountable for this day?
All the while the hideous clamor continued on the other side.
“Please! We are dying! You have to help us!”
“Please! Please! Open the gate!”
“Save us!”
“Open it! They’re coming, they’re coming right behind us! Open it! Come oooon!”
“For fuck’s sake, let us in! There’s still time, just open it!”
Yuliana had been trained as a knight, but it was no code, no glory, nor honor that drove her to become one, but only her heartfelt love for all life. This love couldn’t be quenched by orders, numbers, or rationalization, and it had always been her primary source of strength. But in a situation such as this, her passion turned deftly against her. Unable to stand by and do nothing while human beings suffered, she went to the Marshal and took her arm.
“Master, we—we have to help them…!” she uttered, trembling all over.
Miragrave looked back at her in disgust. “Get back inside and stay there!”
“Master,” Yuliana continued to shake her sleeve. “I’m—I’m ordering you, as the Empress. You have to help them…!”
“Open your eyes, you fool of a girl!” the soldier snapped bitterly at her. “It’s not our people out there!”
“Ha…?”
Suddenly, they came to realize it had gotten quiet.
All the yelling outside had ceased without separate signal.
Dismayed by the silence, they turned their confused eyes at the gate.
And then...
——Gong!
A low, blunt sound rang through the entrance. As though a large boulder had been lobbed at the gate from the other side. But there was nothing on the bridge to throw and no human could’ve cast a rock so big with the necessary might to produce a sound as loud. Everyone in the vicinity stopped short in their tracks and listened under a profound confusion. What was that sound?
Gong! In the absence of other noises, the impact repeated, louder, making everyone reflexively wince. And then again. And again, faster and faster. Gong. Gong, gong, gong—gongongongongongongong—!
It was like the snowburst had turned solid by some miracle, and a great deal heavier. Quick, hard blows came to rattle the gate in a ceaseless torrent. As they listened to the eerie clangor, they soon came to realize the cause of it, and the idea hit them far harder than the sound. It wasn’t meteors, or standard weapons that ravaged the door, but great fists, harder than steel. Ignorant of pain, or simply without care, a multitude of impossibly hard knuckles filled with bestial rage smote the metal over and over. They shouldn’t have had any way to break through, so why…?
“What devilry is this…?” Miragrave gasped, backing away from the hellish noise. “That’s impossible!”
The ground trembled under the weight of the blows even several yards away. Yuliana’s knees were already weak with shock and dread, and she lost her balance on the uneven cobbles. Unable to muster the strength to stand, she looked up at the gatehouse as it shook and wavered under the relentless abuse. Overwhelming horror gripped her heart and she could already almost see the fortress begin to topple and fall on her.
General Monterey ran over to pick her up and escorted her majesty further away to the bonfire.
“Will it hold?” he asked the young mage nearby as he watched the entrance with great doubt.
“T-the ward is intact,” Margitte replied, but there was no confidence in her voice either. “It…It should hold…”
“But what about the wall? The hinges…!?”
The barrage continued unabated, growing even more fiercer. It was as if a titanic washing machine had been set on full blast right next to barbican. The wooden parts of the building groaned and cracked and the ages-old plaster poured through the seams of stone in powdered wafts.
“What are you doing?” Miragrave yelled at the knights on the wall. “Do something! Stop them!”
The defenders let the cauldrons of oil empty over the rampart and followed through with flaming arrows. In no time, the recess between the head of the bridge and the gate had turned into a sea of fire. The rising heat and smoke forced the sentries away from the openings.
Yet, the attack against the gate continued uninterrupted. One knight braved the flames and smoke to peer through an arrow slit, and fell back at once with a horrified cry. Out below, a raving heap of dark, inhuman figures smote the obstacle like frenzied smiths whilst engulfed fully in flames, right at home in such an inferno.
The defenders’ courage was left but one nod away from collapsing. Paralyzed by a horror exceeding their imagination, they stood paralyzed, ready to flee their stations and abandon the wall altogether. A few of them already turned and took the first steps. But they came to a short stop as they saw the robust figure of the Prince of Luctretz block the doorway. He carried a large crate under his arm, which he cast onto the floor before the astounded knights. The cover of the box fell off and heaps of blackwood arrows poured out.
“Use them!” he roared and gripped a bow.
After the man entered Waramoti and the Marshal’s adjutant, carrying bows of their own. Following their example, the knights returned to the balistraria and began to launch enchanted shafts down at the mass of sweltering beasts, as fast as they could.
Deafening, metallic screams and screeches pierced the night. Bursts of green fire mixed in the red of the furnace, the flashes visible on the walls across the mote. The flickering light cast long shadows upon the sandstone display, like dancing devils. At least some of the arrows had found their mark in the concentrated crossfire. The rest of the daemons dispersed in a flurry of shadows and mist and snow, and the banging stopped. When the fire later faded, the underside of the gatehouse was revealed fully clear of hostiles. Not so much as a corpse remained. Had the whole thing even happened or had it been only a bad dream?
Regardless, the gate held.
Tonight, the gate held.